FNL: There Goes the Neighborhood

Your marriage seems to be back on steady ground, and your rebellious teenage daughter is finally talking to you again.

What to do? Why, let’s take in Tim Riggins.

And what’s not to love about Tim moving in with Coach and Tami, not to mention Julie, baby Gracie and Tami’s flighty sister, Shelly? See Tim playing with Gracie and flirting with Shelly, who’s moved in to babysit while she studies for her real estate license.

When Gracie runs out of formula, Tim and Julie make a mad dash to the store, despite the ominous clouds. Tim wouldn’t let a baby go hungry. And when a menacing tornado smashes through the grocery store’s plate glass windows, he pulls Julie protectively out of harm’s way and shields her with his own body.

Whew.

Tami may have some concerns – namely, that putting Tim Riggins next to her 16-year-old daughter “is like putting a can of gasoline right next to a lighted match” – but Coach doesn’t see it that way. He likes having a guy around, someone to “even up the gender team,” and besides, he’s busy complaining about having to share training space with the rival Laribee Lions after their school was flattened by the tornado.

Plus, Tim knows how to fix the television cable, which was knocked out by the storm.

Ah, Tim. A man of many talents.

I’m cutting Tami some slack, since she apparently had to go back to work when Gracie was only about a month old, and she’s gotta be tired. But she’s been quite the grump this season, and Tim gives her another reason to fight with her sister about the old issues – Tami thinks Shelly’s a loser because she’s still single and hasn’t grown up, and what’s up with this inappropriate flirting with Tim? Shelly just thinks Tami is, well, boring.

Still, Tim’s flourishing in Chez Taylor, and he seems to like it when Tami sets the rules.

“No sir,” she tells him when he grabs a beer from the fridge. “Not in this house.”

She’s not amused when Tim offers Shelly $50 to do his homework, or when Coach suggests she make him and Tim some egg sandwiches after she awakens to hear them playing pingpong in the garage. At five o’clock. In the morning.

Julie is amused, however, and she and Tim seem to be building a friendship of sorts. He offers support when Julie sees Matt and Carlotta making out in a restaurant parking lot, and you can see that the two of them might be good together, in a platonic way.

Locker room relations between the Panthers and the Lions aren’t so good, and the Laribee coach apparently never heard that old adage about being a good guest.

When his team trashes the Panthers’ lockers, he shrugs. And when Coach Taylor makes the Panthers sprint up the stadium steps as punishment for a cafeteria brawl, the Laribee coach smirks.

“Boys will be boys,” he says.

Coach Taylor, never laid-back to start with, seethes. After one of the Lions marks his territory by peeing on Tim’s shirt – I am not making this up – the Laribee coach defends his team even after one of them admits to the offense. Hasn’t Tim suffered enough, what with his parents abandoning him and his older brother taking up with Tim’s old girlfriend and his former roommate/meth lab operator pulling a gun on him?

Finally, Coach has had it, pulling the rival coach off of Tim and threatening him both professionally and personally. “I will kick your old tired ass six ways from Sunday,” he promises.

It’s a sweet father-son moment for Coach and Tim, and you can tell Tim is lapping it up. I think Coach liked it, too.

Too bad it couldn’t last.

Things grow shaky in the Garrity household, as well, when Pam giddily confides in Lyla that she’s engaged to the granola guru. Lyla’s emotions play across her face in what’s really just a brief scene; she’s trying to be supportive, but clearly, she’s not happy about this. She doesn’t even suggest they pray or anything.

Buddy’s not happy, either, and there’s a great scene at the town washateria as Buddy has a little talk with himself while Coach looks on, silent and skeptical.

Buddy remembers Pam watching from the sidelines while he played for the Panthers, back in his glory days, and their early days in the car business.

And he remembers what makes Buddy Garrity great.

He’s a salesman.

“I’m going to get my wife back,” he announces and marches to the house, banging on the door until Pam steps out onto the porch.

“I want you baby,” he implores in full Buddy sales mode. “I love you. … You must forgive me.”

Pam isn’t buying. She loves him, too, she says. But it’s over. She shuts the door.

Landry is trying to settle his relationship with Tyra, too, but he’s not having much more luck. Now that that messy murder thing is behind them – much to the relief of fans on the show’s message boards, who hated, hated, HATED that story line – he’s ready to concentrate on their future.

Which makes Tyra nervous. The trouble with Landry, she confides to Julie, is “he cares about me. He’s funny and sweet and funny.”

Easier to hang out with someone guaranteed to treat her badly, so she agrees to go to the big dance with the Laribee quarterback. Except Landry isn’t just sweet and funny. He’s smart, and I think he knows there’s more to Tyra’s reluctance than just the fact that he’s not the best-looking kid in school.

I know some of the shows fans don’t like Landry and Tyra together, but I think Tyra represents the high school girl whose hot body got her typecast early, like in middle school, and Landry is her chance to become something more, if only she can let herself believe.

He shows up at the dance in a dorky sport shirt to find Tyra, wearing a VERY low-cut dress and sitting alone on the sidelines as Charlie Rich’s “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” plays and her date pukes in the bathroom.

“I like you. A lot,” she admits. “I’ve never felt like this about anybody. You make me feel too much Landry. It freaks me out.”

He understands. “I know that you’re better than this,” he tells her. “The thing is, you don’t. I can’t keep waiting around until you realize it.”

And he walks off.

Which would have been a good ending, except that the show’s writers have to wring every soulful moment out of Tim.

He and Julie, along with about half the student body at Dillon High, apparently decided to skip the formal dance in favor of a drunken boozefest. He’s snagging another beer when he notices Julie draped on the couch next to a boy named Riley.

Uh oh.

“Let’s get a beer,” he tells Riley, who happily confides to Tim that “I think I’m one beer away from getting laid.”

You can see why Riley thought this would bring a high five from Tim, but …

instead, Tim offers a little advice. “If you even look at her again, I swear to God I’ll end you,” he says menacingly.

And he takes Julie home. After all, he’s had a lot of experience with putting drunks to bed. So when she complains she’s about to throw up, he knows just how to shift her on the bed to stop the swooning.

Which probably isn’t the best time for Coach to walk in. “What the hell are you doing?” Tim, innocent for once, tries to explain, but Coach isn’t listening, even as Julie whimpers drunkenly in the background.

Out, Coach orders him. “Get out of this house right now.”

Fade to Tim climbing into his truck with his lonely little duffel bag. I loved Tim being with the Taylors, and I could tell Tim did, too, so let’s hope Julie can remember enough of the evening to set her dad straight. And as much as I love Taylor Kitsch’s sad-eyed kitty looks, I think it’s time for him to catch a break. We get it. He’s a good guy trapped in a wastrel’s life.

FNL has five episodes to go before it hits the writers’ strike blockage. Let’s hope he finds a place to go.